Court sides with Grimm

The United States District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia on Tuesday ruled with Gloucester’s Gavin Grimm and against the Gloucester County School Board, which had sought dismissal of Grimm’s Title IX discrimination case.

Grimm, a transgender male who graduated from Gloucester High School last June, had sued the school board while still a student, filing in July 2015, for access to use the boys’ bathrooms.

The court’s order recounted how he had used the bathrooms with no issue until some adults complained in 2014, and then was directed by the board to use single bathrooms. His suit, which worked its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, sought equal treatment under the Title IX federal law which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.

The district court, to which the case had been remanded by the U.S. Supreme Court, found that federal law “protects transgender students from being forced to use separate restroom facilities” according to a release from the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Grimm. The Norfolk federal court ruled against the school board and the order, signed by Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen, directed the board to schedule a settlement conference with Gavin.

A school board statement was brief: “The School Board is aware of the District Court’s decision denying the motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s Amended Complain. The School Board continues to believe that its resolution of this complex matter fully considered the interests of all students and parents in the Gloucester County school system.”

Grimm, quoted in the ACLU release, said, “I feel an incredible sense of relief. After fighting this policy since I was 15 years old, I finally have a court decision saying that what the Gloucester County School Board did to me was wrong and it was against the law. I was determined not to give up because I didn’t want any other student to have to suffer the same experience that I had to go through.”

The ACLU said the court found, in its 31-page opinion, “that Title IX and the Constitution protect transgender students from being excluded from the common restrooms that align with their gender identity.”

ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Claire Guthrie Gastañaga said, “The district court has upheld what Gavin argued all along, that trans students deserve the same protections under Title IX as any other student and can’t be stigmatized and ostracized just because of who they are.”

Until last year, the suit had been on the brink of a hearing by the U.S. Supreme Court.

After the Supreme Court calendared the case for argument, President Donald Trump’s administration issued a new guidance document in February 2017 that withdrew the former administration's guidance document regarding the treatment of transgender students.

The Supreme Court then vacated the appeals court’s April 2016 decision and sent the case back to the appeals court for further consideration in light of the new guidance document. In turn, the appeals court vacated the district court’s granting of the preliminary injunction. The Gloucester School Board argued the matter was moot because Grimm had graduated.

According to a Gazette-Journal article of Aug. 17, 2017, the school board argued that the case became moot because Grimm graduated from GHS on June 10, 2017. It further stated that the school’s bathroom policy does not necessarily apply to alumni.